Tennis: The Russian animal who’s an Open dark horse

Andrey Rublev started his Australian Open campaign with a resounding win. He does more than hit the ball. He annihilates it with animalistic intent.

Russia’s Andrey Rublev hits a return against Germany's Yannick Hanfmann

An early morning in Adelaide. Grabbed a cuppa. Wandered out to the practice courts. Someone was being murdered, or doing the murdering. Waltzing Matilda, who bloody killed her? Deep-throated groans, grunts. Sounded menacing. Violent. Andrey Rublev was doing more than hitting balls. He was annihilating them.

This was more than a year ago. I sat and watched him. Marvelled at the commitment, desire. The most intense training session I’d seen outside of Rafael Nadal. Every shot, out of his shoes. Every last shot. It was a notch above aggressive. It was ultra-aggressive, hyper-aggressive. He chased the ball like he wanted to eat it. Devour it. He was an animal.

All of it was done with a black racquet. I’m still captivated by that stick. Plain black. Black as night. Not a sponsor’s logo to be seen. Just a black hat of a racquet. A Johnny Cash of a racquet. A rebellious racquet. A defiant racquet.

I’ve read that Rublev is sponsored by Wilson but he’s using a Head. The black paint job is to make it look like the Wilson Six One 95, the latest model the company is trying to flog. Who cares what it really is? It’s an instrument of punishment in Rublev’s hand, dotted with specks of blood.

He’s a 23-year-old Russian who’s climbed to the world number eight ranking without too many people noticing. He’s chilled off the court, easy company for an interviewer. On the court, though, he has the vibe of a droog from A Clockwork Orange, wielding a gang member’s steel baton. He began his Australian Open on Tuesday against Germany’s Yannick Hanfmann. A dark horse for the tournament? The black racquet.

Rublev’s first serve of the match was a double fault. He got cranky at a ball kid who had delayed his wild second delivery. When he lost his third straight point on serve, he hit the ball against the back fence in a manner similar to the whack that earned Novak Djokovic disqualification from the US Open.

When he trailed 0-2, he narrowly resisted the temptation to belt a ball into the Yarra. He was agitated. Grumpy. Impatient. Hanfmann had the gentle rocking service motion of Pat Rafter but Rublev wore him down with that haunting black racquet like he was punching him in the face.

He was intense. He plays two-all in the first set with the urgency of five-all in the fifth. He leaves everything on a court, including his emotions. Long-haired, he’s short on patience. He wants to nail every shot. An unforced error makes him grimace and gesticulate as if his very soul has been wounded.

His legs are bowed like they’re buckling and warping from the strain. The racquet head speed is ferocious. He makes blunt strikes on the ball as if he’s killing a snake with a shovel. The black racquet had a white grip and the result was suitably matter-of-fact: 6-3 6-3 6-4. Mark Philippoussis, who knows big, who played as big as it gets, said of one of Rublev’s thunder strikes: “That’s big.”

Animal. Dark horse. I don’t think he’ll win the Open. I think that’ll come down to Novak Djokovic or Daniil Medvedev, who partnered Rublev to win the ATP Cup for Russia. But if Rublev goes down, he’ll go down swinging and snarling and snorting and spitting his objection.

He said: “I don’t know if it’s my best tennis but for sure I’m showing great signs. I was showing a really high level at ATP Cup. I’m really happy that I’m winning my matches so we’ll see what is going to happen. I started a little bit tight today but I’m really happy I could control the match almost since the beginning.”

The seventh-seeded Rublev and fourth-seeded Medvedev are on a collision course for the quarter-finals. There’s a match worth clearing your schedule for. The loser will need to be dragged out by the ankles. They’re two feisty and cantankerous souls. Neither of them take kindly to losing. A wild ride is guaranteed. “Daniil and I were crazy on court as juniors,” Rublev said recently and nothing has changed too much.